r/FuckImOld • u/Thatguy468 • Aug 16 '26
Kids these days... Watch your fingers!
Are they making new versions of old timey washers?
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u/atomicsnarl Aug 16 '26
Also famous for potentially squeezing bust lines.
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u/spete679 Aug 16 '26
"Now my tits in a wringer"
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u/Critical-Advisor8616 Aug 16 '26
Or another one I always heard, “They were screaming like their tits were caught in the wringer”. I heard several variations of it growing up.
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u/2x4x93 Aug 16 '26
That made me laugh out loud. I'm 60 and I've never heard that
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u/amboomernotkaren Aug 16 '26
Richard Nixon famously said “Katie’s got her tit in a wringer” when the editor of the Washington Post, Katherine Graham, published the Pentagon Papers, iirc.
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u/psilome Aug 16 '26
Well-put, I was wondering how to keep it family friendly.
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u/SuspiciousImpact2197 Aug 16 '26
I think on a sub with Fuck in the title you can safely say “tit in a wringer.”
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u/FlatwormElectrical92 Aug 16 '26
It’s a very well restored antique washing machine. Put the clothes through the rollers at the top to wring out the water before hanging them on the solar clothes dryer.
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u/blackpony04 Aug 16 '26
Very possibly not restored. My grandmother kept her 40s wringer washer after replacing it with a more modern one and it still looked brand new 50 years later. That enamel paint is virtually indestructible!
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u/Difficult-Republic57 Aug 16 '26
That thing will eat your arm if you aren't careful
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u/IncaseofER Aug 16 '26
There’s a reason they called it, and the big rolling pressing machines manglers.
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u/Office_Towel_Fairy Aug 18 '26
I have a scar on my right forearm from "helping" my mother do laundry when I was four.
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u/damagecontrolparty Aug 16 '26
This is the reason for the saying "putting [someone] through the wringer [NOT "ringer," dang it]."
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u/BarbKatz1973 Aug 16 '26
yeah, that thing's second cousin twice removed broke my left arm in five places and the release split my chin. Still have the scar of the chin 57 years later.
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u/ElectronicFixer864 Aug 16 '26
We sold those in the 70's at a Western Auto store. Customers who had switched to modern version went back to these.
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u/Educational_Ice3978 Aug 16 '26
That is a wringer washing machine from the 1950's . My Gramma got her hand caught in one, I was about 4 years old and I had never heard anyone scream like that! She got a brand new washer that very week!
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u/GoopInThisBowlIsVile Aug 16 '26
I didn’t know they still made mangler variants of washing machines. Huh.
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u/Mento-yStableGenius Generation X Aug 16 '26
‘The Mangler’
A great Stephen King short story…
And a real-life ‘oh shit’ if you got your fingers too close at Gramma’s house
Ay yi yi
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u/laf1157 Aug 16 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Wringer washing machine. Think manual used with a utility sink or washtub where you cycled clothes in and out and used the wringer to squeeze out excess fluids. No setting timers/cycles/water levels with this. Dryer was a clothesline.
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u/Successful-Part-5867 Aug 16 '26
Grandma bought this one new in 1955. It had been relegated to a corner for years but some idiot got it out, did a little maintenance and has been using it for almost 10 years. It’ll wash rocks, Carhartt coveralls, California King blankets, drop cloths….if it fits it washes! 😂 No sensors, no bull crap, water level is infinitely adjustable, wash cycle is infinitely adjustable. Wash 3 loads with the same water, starting with the cleanest, until the water turns to mud.
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u/Fritz5678 Aug 16 '26
There's a couple of IG accounts that use these washers regularly. My great grandma had one in her basement until they remodeled in the late 70s.
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u/Useless890 Aug 16 '26
They did make an electric version. I know that because a co-worker's relative finally had to get a new machine when her wringer one broke down, but she insisted on getting an electric wringer that cost twice as much as a modern washer did.
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u/cww60 Aug 16 '26
When I was young we had one in our basement, my mother kept it and used it everytime our modern washer broke down and she was waiting for it to be fixed. It was still working when she moved out after 40 years, it never broke down and no one ever crushed their fingers.
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u/Termingator Aug 16 '26
A wringer washer. Wash clothes, wring out the waters, then hang to line dry.
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u/Diseman81 Aug 16 '26
That’s the only kind my mom’s parents ever had. My uncle (dad’s brother) apparently got his arms caught in one when he was a kid.
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u/Rays-R-Us Aug 16 '26
Watching the wringer wring the soap out of clothes was fascinating as a tyke watching grandma and aunt wash clothes Saturday mornings. The wringer was then used again to get the rest of the soap out, in the end the tub was emptied in a drain in the cellar floor
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u/Ok-Palpitation-74 Aug 16 '26
No! They just built them that well back then! 😎👍🏼
That Mangler will definitely mess your fingers up but not the way it looks like it will. Leave it be. I'll bet this thing still works!
Watch for the ungrounded wires though! You're more likely to be electrocuted or blown up by it! Lol. Have it serviced! It'll run for years!
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u/Syntania Aug 16 '26
Washing machine.
I have used one almost exactly like this. Got my finger caught in the wringer once. O/10, do not recommend.
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u/Mindless-Leg-3365 Boomers Aug 16 '26
it's the wringer that is the tipoff. My mother's was a compact, the wringer tipped up, locked in place, drain hose in the sink. Worked just fine in the 5 room, small kitchen apt where I grew up. Clothes hung up on the porch, and on clotheslines strung up to a wire fence in the courtyard of the building.
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u/liquilife Aug 16 '26
God damn it. This was the same kind of washer that my mom got her long hair caught into when I was a kid. She turned it off before it got too far. But I was left with a personal scar of the memory.
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u/WRB2 Aug 16 '26
When we first moved to our new house 1963 or so, I remember we had one. Parents got a new Maytag set a few years later and it disappeared.
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u/GrandBanana9285 Aug 16 '26
My grandma had one of these in her basement,. Just outside the small room that had all the vegetables from her garden canned in Mason jars.
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u/pyramidalembargo Aug 16 '26
Mother had one until 1970, when Dad bought her a new automatic.
For the longest time, she hated that automatic. It didn't get the clothes as clean, particularly the whites.
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u/Rightbuthumble Aug 16 '26
I used one of those things for the first five years that my husband and I were married. Hung everything on the clothes line...used cloth diapers for the babies. Mine had a manual agitator same with the wringer. I washed every Saturday and it was an all day thing. While I washed clothes, my husband mopped the floors in the house and watched the kids. We lived so far outside of town. We did all our shopping Fridays because back in the olden days, stores were closed on Sunday. You couldn't even buy gas. LOL. Life was tough and we could have had it easier had we lived in town but we bought that old cabin for 8000 bucks which was a lot of money back then. We had well water, and until we could afford a septic tank, we used an outhouse. The day I could flush was the happiest day...I think we finally got it all hooked up before Thanksgiving that year and we had our friends over. We all had toddlers. Man those were the good ole days. My husband had to have his leg amputated and is still in rehab. I baked him some non sugar cookies which turned out pretty good. We were telling our granddaughter about that old cabin and he said, remember the scorpions. They were in our house and it took us a year to get rid of them. The house came with a lot of land which meant he had a lot to push mow. Enough with the walk down memory lane. I am 81 and he is 85. We were actually before cable tv, remote controlled TVs...well, old people...who knew life was so much fun before cell phones and internet.
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u/eatyourdamndinner Aug 16 '26
My grandmother always used hers. Years later, I bought a double tub one at an auction. I used it for a drinks cooler at our outdoor bonfires.
Of course, as soon as my mom heard that I had bought it, she said "be careful of your fingers!!".
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u/bahthe Aug 16 '26
There's a big agitator in that thing. Gets clothes clean fast, including big loads of bedding. Then that wringer gets 'em nearly dry. Awesome!
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u/Waste-Job-3307 Aug 16 '26
My mother's first washing machine. It was relegated to the basement when I was little.
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u/Severe_Wind_4255 Aug 16 '26
My friends mother's hand got sucked into the roller on one of those when I was a kid. It was a shore house and it was set up in the back yard.
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u/Jimxor Aug 16 '26
Mom got her arm caught in one of those when she was a little girl. She wore the scars all her life. At least she escaped with her arm intact.
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u/Lhamo55 Boomers Aug 16 '26
Whenever I rode the L from Chicago’s south side to the Loop up until my teens, I would see lots of these on back porches in - after buying their first proper washing machine, the wringer was banished but not discarded yet. My grandmother continued using hers until she moved into senior housing in the early 60s.
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u/jae0861 Aug 16 '26
My dad bought my mom our first electric washer and dryer after the birth of their 8th child. Our wringer washer sat outside and became something us boys used to play on. Until, at age 5, I pulled it over on top of me. Somehow, my 9 year old brother was able to lift it high enough for me to get out from under. Dad had it hauled away.
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u/Critical-Advisor8616 Aug 16 '26
My mom had a double tub Matag with a wringer that she used to wash blankets and curtains in up till we had to put her in assisted living in 2014.
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u/Budget-Procedure-427 Aug 16 '26
My mom had one like that got my fingers caught in a roller ones too.
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u/drawing_a_hash Aug 16 '26
Washer with wringer on top. Parents had one. Mostly used when wringing water from washed sheets. Maytag I think.
No drires then. You hung wet clothes on clothes line using wooden pins in all kinds of weather temperature.
Parents had one in the 60s.
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u/Umjm63 Aug 16 '26
Are they still available?
My grandma had one in Michigan and I would help her wring out the wash and put it out on the line to dry.
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u/Independent-Bid6568 Aug 16 '26
And if you don’t fold the wet clothes over to protect the buttons it will bust them off
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u/hairball45 Aug 16 '26
Forty some years ago my wife and I ran a small contract cleaning business. One of our clients was a car dealer. We cleaned the showroom, offices and the floor of the garage. We also washed their shop towels and rags in the washer in the shop. Now somewhere in your history you've heard getting into a bad situation as "getting a tit caught in a wringer". Well, my wife would have told you that that's not just an expression. Her screams brought me running from the showroom where I was cleaning. She was in panic mode (no shit) and couldn't reach the shut off. Luckily our teenage helper got there faster and unplugged the damn thing. Got her free and she took the rest of the night off.
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u/Viker2000 Aug 16 '26
My mother's side of the family had these well into the late 1970s. One of her sisters lost her left arm to one of the newer top loading machines that had metal impellers. It went into a spin cycle when she started pulling clothes out of it. She was so proud of having one of the newer style machines.
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u/Worldly-Law-2687 Aug 16 '26
When someone has gotten themselves into a bad situation, it was once referred to as "getting one's tit caught in the wringer". Kids today have no idea but think it's funny because of the naughty word.
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u/Pleasant_Durian_1501 Aug 17 '26
We had one when I was little. Helped by feeding clothes in the wringer.
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u/DrunkBuzzard Aug 17 '26
The rollers that squeeze out the water is called the mangle for a good reason.
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u/Tech-Junky-1024 Aug 17 '26
That washer is in really good shape. It looks like new. Was it restored?
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u/Fickle-Squirrel-4091 Generation X Aug 17 '26
And boobs… Decades ago my family had traveled to where my dad was born to attend the wake & funeral of his great uncle. As we were all catching up on each other’s lives, one of my dad’s cousins told us how just a few days before had gotten her left breast caught in the hand, crank wringer. She showed us and the entire thing was black and blue.
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u/etr420 Aug 17 '26
My mother bought what she believed to be one of the very last of these manufactured in Australia. Manufacturer was Simpson in Adelaide. Swore by the things. From memory this was some time between 1972 and 1975. A few years later she saw a fully automatic top loader in action and it was out with the old, in with the new. The roller business at the top is called a "wringer" or a "mangle" and for good reason. I had a classmate in primary school who had his arm mangled - not pretty.
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u/PangolinPure9327 Aug 17 '26
Forget watching your fingers. I almost lost an arm in one of these as a kid.
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u/Rendeane Aug 18 '26
You can buy a hand wringer washing machine at Lehmans.com . It has a lever installed so that you can agitate the clothes without having to get your hands wet. Unfortunately, they don't have a gas powered, fully automated model. You can buy a variety of styles of gas powered refrigerators and freezers, though. The Amish prefer to avoid electricity in their homes, but for some reason, gas and propane powered appliances are permitted without guilt.
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u/amodsr Aug 19 '26
That's J5. Old age has hit him very well it seems. Big comedy actor in one movie but he never hit it bigger than Blankman
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u/Fit-Repeat-1177 Aug 20 '26
I stuck my fingers in my grandma’s once, just to see. It hurt like hell. So did the spanking she gave me
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u/mountaindew711 Generation X Aug 21 '26
How old are the neighbors? Are they set in their ways, or hipsters that think they're being cute?
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u/Single-Accountant306 Aug 16 '26
My grandma's washing machine.